October is Workplace Health & Safety Month.
Workplace health and safety isn’t something to be pushed to the side, with many people affected by work related injury or illness. Safe Work Australia reported that data from 2020 indicated 180 people died while doing their job – that’s 180 too many, and many more family members and friends impacted!
It is important to remember that workplace health and safety includes not only physical injury, but also mental health related incidents too. In the current climate, COVID-19 presents as a big risk to workplace health and safety. In 2020, 1,222 compensation claims were lodged in relation to COVID-19. This included claims due to not only contracting the virus, but also those suffering from mental health conditions due to the increased pressures COVID-19 has presented. These numbers show that workplace health and safety covers an extremely wide scope and it all needs to be considered!
So this month the team at Ormond Physiotherapy encourage you to bring attention to the importance of workplace health and safety and make it a part of your workplace culture by following these steps…
- The first step to thinking about work health and safety, which covers the planning and forethought that employers and small business owners must do to identify risks and maintain healthy and safe workplaces.
- This is about implementing work health and safety measures to manage risks including the practical steps you can take to reduce risk and avoid workplace incidents. This includes following protocols and wearing the appropriate PPE.
- The final step considers the ongoing process of managing and monitoring work health and safety risks – it is not a one off. Everyone deserves to return home from work alive and uninjured!
Your loved ones, and the loved ones of your co-workers will be forever grateful if following these steps brings light to a health and safety issue which helps to prevent serious injury and/or death.
So this October, make sure you’re thinking, working and being safe. It could literally save a life!
Should you be victim to a workplace incident, the team at Ormond Physiotherapy are registered WorkSafe Victoria providers. We can help you with physiotherapy manual therapy, exercise prescription & remedial massage. Should you have a WorkCover claim and would like to discuss your options further, please call the clinic on 9578 6588.
